Approval Chain

Configure multi-level approval workflows with role-based approvers

How Approvals Work

The approval chain defines who must approve a release before it can proceed to deployment. Approvals are sequential — L1 must approve before L2 can act, L2 before L3, and so on.

Configuring Approval Levels

Go to Settings > Approval Roles and click Edit. You can configure up to 5 approval levels (L1 through L5).

For Each Level

Mapped Role — Select an existing Jira project role or type a new name. New roles are created automatically on save.
Must be part of Team — When enabled, the approver at this level can only approve releases for teams they belong to. Disable for senior leadership roles that approve across all teams.

Edit Approval Roles

Click the kebab menu on Approval Roles and select Edit. The role picker loads existing Jira project roles.

Map each level to a role

For L1, select or type "Team Lead". For L2, select "Engineering Manager". Add L3 for "Director" if needed. Select from the dropdown or type a new name.

Configure team restrictions

Check "Must be part of Team" for L1 and L2 (so team leads only approve their own team). Leave unchecked for L3+ (directors approve across teams).

Save

Click Save. New roles that don't exist yet are created automatically in Jira.

Adding Users to Approval Roles

After mapping roles in Settings, you must add users to those Jira project roles so they appear as selectable approvers. This is standard Jira behaviour — roles are containers, and users need to be added to them.

Why can’t I see any approvers? If the approver picker shows no users, it means no one has been added to the mapped project role yet. Follow the steps below to add users.

Method 1 — Project Settings

Open your Jira project

Navigate to the Jira project where Release Governance is installed (the RMC project).

Go to Project Settings > People

Click Project Settings in the sidebar, then select People.

Add people to the mapped role

Click Add People. Search for the user by name or email, select the role you mapped in the approval chain (e.g. “Team Lead”, “Engineering Manager”), and click Add.

Method 2 — Jira Administration

Open Jira Administration

Click the gear icon in the top-right corner and select System (or Projects).

Navigate to Project Roles

Go to System > Security > Project roles. Click on the role name (e.g. “Team Lead”) to manage its default members, or click Manage Default Members to add users/groups across all projects at once.

This is expected behaviour, not a bug Jira project roles work in two steps: first you create/map the role (done automatically by RMC when you save approval settings), then you add users to that role in each project. RMC reads Jira’s role membership to populate the approver picker, so users must be added to the role before they can be selected.

How Approvers are Assigned

When creating a release, the submitter selects specific approvers for each level. The approver picker searches users who have the mapped role in the project. Only users with the correct role can be selected.

Approval Actions

Approvers see releases in their My Approvals queue. For each release at their level, they can:

Approve — Move the release forward to the next level (or to Approved if last level)
Reject — Block the release with a mandatory reason
Request Changes — Send it back to the submitter for corrections

My Approvals Queue

The My Approvals page shows releases where you are a designated approver. Filter by:

Pending — Releases waiting for your action (default view)
Upcoming — Releases where you're an approver but it's not your turn yet
Approved — Releases you've already approved
Rejected — Releases you've rejected
All — Everything you're involved in

Freeze Exception Approval When a release is submitted during a freeze window, a special "Freeze Exception" approval level is added. Freeze exception approvers are configured per freeze window and run in parallel with the regular approval chain.